The remaining members of The Grateful Dead will be touring as The Dead this summer and have reheared over 150 songs. They have plans for charities to get a huge windfall from sales of prime tickets.
The Dead are hoping that in addition to raising money for its Rex
Foundation and other respective charities, an auction of prime
seats for its upcoming tour will also put those tickets in the
hands of fans, not scalpers.
"We want to keep away from all of that," percussionist Mickey Hart
tells Billboard.com. "You always keep your fingers crossed that the
bad guys don't get in there and turn profits for themselves."
Tickets have been turning up on secondary sale sites such as
Tickets Now and StubHub, but the Dead has also decided not to offer
Platinum Tickets through Ticketmaster.
Guitarist Bob Weir concurred that he's long felt any type of
scalping "should be illegal. Nobody benefits but a few people. The
band doesn't get any of that money. The people have to pay more
money for what they should rightfully be getting for way less. It's
immensely frustrating."
Under the auction plan, which is being operated through Charity
Folks (www.charityfolks.com), the Dead is auctioning off the first
five rows center for its shows to high bidders. Memorabilia and
meet-and-greet opportunities are also up for grabs. The group hopes
the auctions will raise $250,000 for the Rex Foundation, an arts
charity the group established in 1983, as well as for the Further
Foundation, the Unbroken Chain Foundation and the Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society.
"Charities need money. They need help, especially these days," says
percussionist Bill Kreutzmann. "This puts those seats into the
hands of our fans, who are not only getting great seats and good
music but also know the money is going to charitable
organizations."
"The first gig as the Grateful Dead was a benefit," notes Weir. "It
always seemed to us that you get some, you give some back. It makes
good sense. It's just something we've always done, and this latest
round is, I think a well-conceived, somewhat newer version of
it."
The Dead -- which will also include fellow Grateful Dead founder
Phil Lesh on bass, guitarist Warren Haynes and keyboardist Jeff
Chimenti -- are gearing up for the tour, the group's first since
2004, which kicks off April 12 in Greensboro, N.C. The group
already did a 12 days of rehearsal, during which Weir says it
prepared a whopping 150 songs, with another prep run planned before
the opening date.
The band is set to perform on the "Late Show with David Letterman"
on April 23, and have even planned an interview appearance with the
ladies of "The View."
"We're trying to bring out as many tunes as we can," Weir says.
"We're doing tunes I haven't played in 35 years or so, but that
said there'll be all the old favorites..."It's kind of a big task
to pull the band out of mothballs. The impetus to bring the Dead
back around just had to grow until it made sense to all of us.
We've got a fair bit of unfinished business, and we all know that.
At some point it just made sense for us to get back to it."
